Libya IX

NDPP wrote:

Frmrsldr wrote:

That ended when Gadhafi started the war against the Libyan People.

NDPP

I'm far from certain this master narrative still obtains...

The bottom line is, it was Gadhafi who "shot first" thus destroying whatever legitimacy he had.

Even so.

This is a matter that concerns the Libyan People.

No foreign governments have the pre-existing right to militarily interfere in the affairs of the Libyan People.

Frmrsldr wrote:

Hopefully, they will soon gain experience and will be able to militarily outsmart and outfight Gadhafi's forces.

Jingles wrote:

Why would you hope that? There has been no evidence that these "libertarias", as you call them, are anything other than gangsters or mercenaries themselves. What we do know is that the regular folk will get screwed either way. 

What I see seems to be a replay of Kosovo, where NATO backs their drug running mafioso partners to pave the way for the IMF. "People Power" or democracy are rather irrelevant, I'm afraid.

I am guilty of referring to the People who rebelled as Libertarias.

I am probably wrong.

There probably are those who we would see as bad or who are "guilty" of doing bad things and collaborating with the U.S. and Western powers.

However,

you are equally guilty when it comes to your branding them all as "gangsters" and "mercenaries."

Are you certain of this?

Would you tar with a broad brush all the People of Tunisia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Gaza, the West Bank (Palestinians), Yemen and Bahrain, etc?

The U.S., Western and Saudi, Emirate and Qatari, etc., governments are in the wrong with their militarily interfering in Libya.

Gadhafi is in the wrong for waging war against the Libertarias who were peacefully protesting the same as anywhere else.

Gadhafi is as much in the wrong as the Israel government and its treatment of the Palestinians, the Yemen government and its treatment of its People, the Bahrain government (and Saudi government) and its treatment of its People, etc.

However our governments (yours and mine) do not have the right to militarily interfere in the affairs of these or any foreign countries.

I have half a mind to go to Libya, grab a gun and join the Libertarias.

I am that convinced of my belief in the People's Revolution.

Care to join me - if not actually, then say, "intellectually"?

laine lowe wrote:

Who named the protestors/militia "Libertarias"? I tried googling to see when and where that happened and got nothing.

I did.

"Libertarias" is Spanish for "the Liberated Ones." As far as I know (could be wrong), the term was coined in the Spanish Civil War and referred to the Revolutionaries fighting the monarchists, conservatives, Spanish military, Franco's forces, the fascists, etc.

laine lowe wrote:

And how do we factor in the fact that western powers may have directly or indirectly prompted certain groups to rebel. History has shown that when Western powers invest time and $$$ in fomenting and supporting an opposition movement, they like to make sure their investment pays off. Such groups as NED, OSI and CIA are well versed in meddling in foreign affairs and spinning the truth to support regime change.

I think this is a case of allowing self-defeating, paranoid conspiracy theories to sellout the Libyan People's Libertaria Revolution.

I find it interesting that while our (Western) and sellout allied satrap Arab governments (Saudi Arabia, U.A.E., Qatar, etc.) are militarily interfering in Libya, where they have no right to do,

here we are, away from what is going on in Libya, living comfortably in our countries engaging in such counterproductive discussions.

How do we know whether these armchair analyst intellectual eggheads that come up with these conspiracy theories have the intent to seed doubts in our minds about the Peoples' Revolution(s) or are not useful idiots who are being used by Western intelligence agencies who feed them such "information" to seed doubts in our mind and thus cast dispersions on the Peoples' Revolution(s)?

When the People started peacefully protesting, Gadhafi had a CHOICE.

Just like the Presidents of Tunisia and Egypt had a CHOICE.

We know what happened in Tunisia and Egypt.

Gadhafi CHOSE differently. Gadhafi CHOSE to wage war against the People of Libya.

GADHAFI is the one to blame for this. NOT the People.

The question is a very simple one:

Is there, or is there not a Peoples' Revolution in Libya?

I have made where I stand perfectly clear.

Where do you stand?

If you don't think there is a Peoples' Revolution in Libya,

then we might as well face our own bullshit

and either support Gadhafi

or military intervention, the no-fly zone and the regime change the U.S., the U.K., France, Canada and other countries to follow, are striving after.

laine lowe wrote:

History has shown that what I suggested is not conspiracy theory but fact.

Here is a very interesting opinion piece to give pause to whatever rebellion you choose to support, including the "Libertarias".

[url=http://rppe.wordpress.com/2011/03/25/libya-the-poverty-of-analyses/]

Libya: The poverty of analyses[/url]

Quote:

...So, if, Ghadaffi has not fallen it is precisely because the Green revolution did achieve something in Libya. The revolution has a social base beyond Ghadaffi’s tribe. Thus, if we are serious about international solidarity we need to figure out what the internal politics of a place is, what has been achieved in that country and what are its contradictions. As I have been saying, supporting rebellions for the sake of supporting rebellions is problematic because everything gets framed as a battle between good and evil. The alternative that ends up being offered actually narrows the space for thinking about and building something different than liberal-democracy anywhere in the world.

Did the Ghadaffi regime change the structures of society in any significant manner? Yes it did. Did the regime defend certain progressive ideas/policies, such as land reform, better prices for oil, massive decrease in child mortality rates, better distribution of wealth and access to state institutions of caring? Yes again. Will it be very difficult to maintain these gains in the present neo-liberal conjuncture? Will it be even more difficult to maintain these gains in a post-Ghadaffi era with a political arrangement that invited imperial forces into the country in the name of human rights? More likely it will be very difficult. So as a good professor at the University of London has pointed out, “it matters that we pay attention to the 25 years added to the average Libyan’s life expectancy (compare that to even more oil rich Nigeria, where life expectancy is decades less), that we recognise that the social outcomes have been so much better for ordinary people than anywhere else in North Africa including Egypt. The point is in no way to say that MG was a benign thing, but I do think almost all the analyses makes no attempt to understand why this kind of regime emerged, and indeed what it achieved.”

Two months ago when their was no real organized insurgency in Libya, we rushed the gun and claimed that the opposition in Libya was part of an Arab spring. We should have analysed the situation better and been more strategic in what we asked for. Now that there is a war, everything has been reduced to a battle between good and evil. But if that is the only game in town, it means we have already lost. This is because the terms are not ours to chose...

"This is because the terms are not ours to chose..."

PRECISELY.

In other words, our (the U.S., the U.K., France, Canada and other governments) decision to militarily interfere in Libya, was not ours to make.

What right do we think we have to do this?

ABSOLUTELY NONE.

Which is what I have been arguing all along.

Thus our (you, I and any other individual non-government actor) choice is either supporting Gadhafi's right (whatever right he had) to govern,

or the (Libyan) People's right to demand their rights be respected, that they have a right to Security of Person, a right to Freedom from Fear, a right to Justice, a right to Equality, a right to Liberty, a right to greater Representative Democracy (if that is what they wish - I realize this "right" is "murkier" than the others.)

I don't deny that Gadhafi has done a lot of good things in the past for Libya and the Libyan People.

But again, let me repeat myself,

when the People peacefully protested, Gadhafi had a CHOICE:

He could have had a peaceful conversation with the people and in the spirit of "give and take" could have arrived at a peaceful solution that would have been (more-or-less) agreeable to (most) everyone.

But he did not CHOOSE that.

No, in the end all he cared about were his (supposed) "right" to govern, his right to his powers, priviledges, entitlements, creature comforts, etc., over the (above mentioned and other) rights and goods of the People.

He chose instead to wage war against and murder the Libertarias who were peacefully protesting.

He went berzerk and in a rage started spewing out in speeches that the People "were greasy rats, high on psychadellic drugs, first supported by the CIA, then supported by Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, then by the CIA and Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, etc,"

I don't care how long he's been in power or how much good he's done.

The instant he started the war and started murdering the innocent, peaceful unarmed People, was the instant he lost whatever legitimacy he had.

I'm an atheist.

But that doesn't mean I don't have faith in anything.

I put my faith in the People

and in the Peoples' Revolution.

What about you?

Libyan Rebel Commander Admits His Fighters Have Al Qaeda Links

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/840...

"Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, the Libyan rebel leader, has said jihadists who fought against allied troops in Iraq are on the front lines of the battle against Muammar Gaddafi's regime. Mr. al-Hasidi insisted his fighters 'are patriots and good Muslims, not terrorists,' but added that the 'members of al-Qaeda are also good Muslims and are fighting against the invader.'

His revelation came even as Idriss Deby Itno, Chad's president, said al-Qaeda had managed to pillage military arsenals in the Libyan rebel zone and acquired arms 'including surface to air missiles, which were then smuggled into their sanctuaries.' Mr. al-Hasid admitted he had earlier  'fought against 'the foreign invasion' in Afghanistan before being captured in Peshawar in Pakistan.' He was later handed over to the US and then held in Libya before being released in 2008.

US and British government sources said Mr. al-Hasidi was a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, or LIFG, which killed dozens of Libyan troops in guerrilla attacks around Derna and Benghazi in 1995 and 1996.."

I love it -  NATO, Al Qaeda, the 'Arab Spring' Libertarians, big oil, - even the NDP, - up against crazy Muammar Ghadafi who raves insanely of CIA and Al Qaeda plots against him..make one helluva movie maybe...beam me up now Scottie!

Libyan rebels regain key city after airstrikes

Ajdabiya is taken by the rebels after Coalition air strikes force Gadaffi troops to abandon heavy equipment.

T-72 tank and an APC in the back ground destroyed outside Ajdabiya

Quote:

Libya - Libyan rebels regained control of the eastern gateway city of Ajdabiya on Saturday after international airstrikes on Moammar Gadhafi's forces, in the first major turnaround for an uprising that once appeared on the verge of defeat. In a western city the opposition lost to Gadhafi, a resident said the regime's security agents had lists of rebel sympathizers and were dragging them from their homes.

Ajdabiya's sudden fall to Gadhafi's troops spurred the swift U.N. resolution authorizing international action in Libya, and its return to rebel hands on Saturday came after a week of airstrikes and missiles against the Libyan leader's military. On the road into the city on Saturday, at least eight blackened Gadhafi tanks lay on the ground.

Drivers honked horns in celebration and flew the tricolor rebel flag. Others in the city fired their guns into the air and danced on the burned out tanks.

Saif Sadawi, a 20-year-old rebel fighter with an RPG in his hands, says the city's eastern gate fell late Friday and the western gate fell at dawn Saturday after airstrikes on both locations.

"All of Ajdabiya is free," he said.

The relief of Misrata and Zwara are the rebel's next big task, after organizing their own army. Logistics will be everything in the forth coming battles; air strikes can only get them so far. These cities are in Gadaffi's zone of control; and now the rebels will have to extend their supply lines into them to fight these battles. No easy task, even for a modern army.